How do you make your business stand out? In today’s ultra-competitive high-stakes marketplace, business promotion has to be an essential element in your business strategy. According to the Promotional Products Association International, a promotional product is any “item used to promote a product, service or company program, including advertising specialties, premiums, incentives, business gifts, awards, prizes, commemoratives and other imprinted or decorated items”. Promotional products can be especially helpful for small businesses, as they are cheaper than advertising, give a personal touch, and have memorability. Branded promotional merchandise is the way to go, with people switching off from TV and online advertising.
How Promotional Products Help Your Business
1) Promotional Goodies Improve Brand Recall
According to a 2012 study by Relevant Insights, seven out of ten recalled receiving promotional product in the past twelve months. In addition, 88% of those surveyed recalled the company whose product they received in the past twelve months. The most commonly recalled industries using promotional products are financial services, retailers, clothing brands and electronics manufacturers. So any time the consumer uses your promotional merchandise, she is being reminded of your brand and why she should return again to your company.
2) Promotional Merchandise is Durable
Promotional products such as pens, magnets, or computer products are often present and used regularly in the daily life of customers. The Relevant Insights study found that while eight out of ten customers own between one and ten promotional products, six in ten keep them for up to two years and a little more than half, or 53%, use a promotional item at least once a week. An advertisement lasts for a few seconds; nowadays, consumers are increasingly fast-forwarding pas advertisements or ignoring them while surfing the internet. Promotional merchandise, on the other hand, stays fixed as a permanent advertisement for your company, for as long as the consumer uses it.
3) Promotional Products Draw Crowds at Trade Shows and Business Fairs
Visitors to trade shows are much more likely to be drawn to those booths offering free goodies. Exhibit Surveys conducted a study that showed a 176% increase in trade-show traffic to a booth that gave out promotional items. Since trade shows and business fairs are an excellent opportunity for you to make your brand known among business and trade representatives or consumers, having free goodies will attract more attention and lead to more opportunities than if you didn’t have any promotional merchandise to distribute.
4) Promotional Goods Reach Further Than Your Target Audience
One unique advantage of promotional branded merchandise is that the recipients often distribute or share them among their family, friends, and colleagues. Hence, the customized pens that you gave your bank’s premium account holders may find their ways to many more people than just your customer, and could even lead them to shift their business to you. You would be able to reach people having varied banking needs; small businesses needing customized checking account facilities, a salaried man looking for investment options where he can park his savings, and so on.
5) Promotional Merchandise is as Good At Generating Revenue as Traditional Advertisements
Advertising is supposed to generate revenue for your business. Well, so does the distribution of promotional merchandise. A 1993 study by Baylor University found that customers who receive promotional products are more willing to provide leads than customers who don’t. Twenty Mary Kay consultants participated in a study where half of them distributed promotional gifts to customers and the other half had no promotional products to offer. Both groups then asked customers to refer acquaintances. Customers who received a promotional product were 14% more likely to provide leads than those who did not.
Richard Harris
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